


Change Is Gonna Do Me Good

by novelized



Category: Rocketman (2019) RPF
Genre: First Times, Lots of drinking, M/M, Miscommunication, and honky cat (because i really just need that to be a tag), and smoking (because richard) (tsk tsk)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 22:08:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19118656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novelized/pseuds/novelized
Summary: There is a moment, just after the screening, when it hits him all at once: just how fucking ludicrous his life has become.





	Change Is Gonna Do Me Good

There is a moment, just after the screening, when it hits him all at once: just how fucking ludicrous his life has become. It has been looming large over him for the past eighteen months, since the day he’d shaved his hairline down and prayed it’d one day grow back, but now, now he feels the full weight of it. He’s at bloody Cannes, he’s sat next to Elton John, there is thunderous applause and a standing ovation and a lump in his throat that he can’t swallow back down. The cameras have full-on caught him crying but he doesn’t even care.

The rest of the evening floats by in a blur. There is a beer in his hand, then a second. There is a rumble of excitement as they make their way down the Croisette. There is a stage on the beach and Elton at the piano and all of his dreams materializing right before him, and he is too afraid to blink because if he does, he might open his eyes and find that all of this is over.

Richard joins him on the sand, after. Hands him a third drink before pulling him into a hug, his chin tucked over Taron’s shoulder, and Taron slowly lets out the breath he feels like he’s been holding all day.

“I don’t think,” he says into Richard’s ear, waves crashing around them, “after all this, I can stand to be alone tonight.”

\---

What he’d meant was: I think we should keep drinking. I think we should order in. I think you should come over and pinch me, repeatedly, because none of this actually feels real.

When Richard closes the hotel door behind him, all prior thoughts fly out of his head.

“It’s done,” Richard says, pulling at the strings of his bowtie. “The most frightening part is over, don’t you think?” He is sleek and unrumpled and unwrecked even now, at this ungodly hour, making Taron feel like a right slob. Taron had spilled beer on his loafers. Taron would be picking sand out of his hair for days to come. Taron was a little unsteady on his feet, at this point, and it seemed natural to marvel up-close at the sharpness of Richard’s jaw.

He’s been asked a question. Richard’s waiting for a response. “Yeah,” he says, without knowing entirely what he’s responding to. “Sure. I mean, definitely.”

Richard quirks an eyebrow at him. “You all right, T?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He pockets his hands and then unpockets them. Tugs at his own bowtie. “You?”

“Never better.”

Taron studies Richard’s face. They’d waited until the party had dwindled down, until the bar had packed up, until the crowds around them had dispersed, until it was as it was often in the beginning of this madness: the two of them, alone, together. Elton’s got a husband and Jamie’s got a new baby and Taron’s got Richard in his hotel room in the wee hours of the morning and somehow that makes sense.

“Kinda feel like something momentous should be happening,” Taron tells him. 

Richard smiles. “Something momentous just did.”

“Right.” Taron takes a few small steps forwards. He doesn’t know where this is coming from, except that he’s being propelled by some sort of gravitational pull, and that he’s just drunk enough and the evening was just surreal enough and he needs something, _something_ , to tether him back to earth. Richard gets it, Taron thinks. He might be the only one that does.

He draws level with Richard. Reaches out and cleanly unbuttons his jacket. He feels plucky and _cool_ doing this, because Richard’s wearing Armani, because his hands aren’t shaking, because he doesn’t have to pretend to fumble around like he’d done on set, even if he doesn’t have a lot of experience with this in real life. Richard’s jacket hangs open around his hips and Taron goes for the shirt underneath but Rich stops him short, wraps both hands around Taron’s wrists and holds them still.

“What are you doing, mate?”

Taron thought it was obvious, what with him trying to ruck his shirt out of his waistband, now the only disheveled thing about him. “I dunno,” he says. “Really thought this was the direction we were headed.”

Richard’s smile softens, but doesn’t disappear. He is infuriatingly kind at the worst of times. “You’re drunk,” he says, and gives Taron’s wrists a squeeze before letting go.

“I can still get it up—” Taron argues, but Richard laughs and quickly shakes his head.

“ _Not_ what I meant.” He tucks his shirt back in, rebuttons his jacket, and then chucks Taron under the chin. “Go to bed. Clear your head. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

Before Taron can list the twelve different reasons Richard should stay—number one being they’d already _simulated_ the damn thing, what difference could it make—he’s gone and out the door, back to his own room, alone, presumably, where he will not be getting off by Taron’s hand, which really had seemed like a solid plan to wind down the night.

He strips his own suit off in annoyance—which was a flashy Tom Ford number, thank you, Richard’s not the only one with style—and crawls into bed, shoving his hand down his own shorts instead.

He’s passed out before he even really gets going.

In retrospect, it was probably for the best.

\---

Taron wakes up with a pounding headache and a cottony mouth and a churning stomach and every other hangover side effect known to man, which seems fair and deserved, almost, after yesterday being the greatest day in his whole entire life. He ignores the onslaught of text messages he’d received overnight and instead calls for coffee to be sent up. He’s got an interview with the LA Times that morning, and he desperately needs to shower. He’s a little slow to get moving but then, drinking too much is unfortunately in his wheelhouse. It’s never stopped him before.

He goes over the previous day’s events in his mind while he gets ready, grinning into the jet of water when he recalls the way Elton had squeezed Bernie’s knee at their first onscreen meeting, the tears streaming down his face near the end. He towels himself off and thinks about how _long_ the clapping had continued, four electrifying minutes that had felt like an emotional eternity. He closes his eyes and remembers singing Rocket Man on stage, the salty breeze blowing across his face. He steps over his Tom Ford tux and—

—and he freezes.

He remembers, suddenly, coming back to the hotel room. With Richard. He remembers, suddenly, what he’d done. Tried to do. He remembers, suddenly, Richard leaving in a hurry.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” he says out loud.

The one bright spot of this horrifying realization: his hangover pales in comparison, after that.

\---

He’s still got to do the interview, although it’s derailed in the beginning by Elton ringing him up and singing last night’s praises. He chugs more coffee and recounts the day in its entirety—almost entirety, of course, he’d rather drown himself in the bay than talk about what he’d tried to do with Richard. He does, however, jump every time his phone buzzes, but it’s his mum three times, Dexter twice, Jamie once, a handful of others. Nothing from Richard. He can’t bring him to silence the damn thing, so he just flashes a helpless grin at the interviewer every time it goes off and she laughs like she thinks it’s cute.

Afterwards, when they’ve finished, he sits on the steps outside and lets the morning sunlight wash over him. He types up and deletes a dozen iterations of the same message:

_You as hungover as I am? Hardly remember a thing…_

_Sorry about last night, mate, must have lost my head—_

_Really gave the old method acting a go, didn’t I?_

_Dunno where that came from, I’m usually so reserved and shy—_

He pokes his tongue into his cheek and finally, finally, composes one that feels right ( _Hair of the dog later? Promise I'll behave_ ) and sends it before he can second guess himself. Richard, of course, writes back within seconds.

_Hotel bar in 20? Won’t hold my breath xx_

\---

He’s nursing a bloody mary when Richard appears at his elbow, shower-fresh with perfectly tousled hair. If he’s bothered by Taron’s behavior last night, he doesn’t show it. “You’re recovering nicely, then,” he says cheerfully, and pulls Taron’s glass across the bar, sniffs it before taking an experimental sip.

“Just barely,” Taron answers, and lets the drink go without a fight. It is, he reckons, the least he can do. “Nearly threw up during an interview this morning. Can’t imagine that’d’ve made Dex very happy.” 

“No, I imagine not. Though it would’ve made for a good tabloid headline.”

Taron clears his throat, swivels a little in his seat. He has never been one to shy away from confrontation before, but then, he’s also never had to deal with _this_. “Speaking of,” he says, and winces a little.

Richard regards him patiently. He must know what he’s on about, but he doesn’t offer any help. Probably just wants to watch Taron suffer, the charming bastard.

Taron drums his fingers on the bar and doesn’t look at Richard. “I came onto you last night,” he says, matter-of-factly. Just puts it all out there. Richard breaks into an easy laugh and any tension Taron had been harboring melts right away. Of course it’d be as simple as this.

“That you did.”

“No idea where that came from.”

“I didn’t mind it,” Richard says, and passes the bloody back to Taron.

He stirs the celery stick into the drink and continues to not look at Richard’s jawline, or the grey streak in Richard’s hair. He might’ve dreamt about it last night. He can’t remember details, but there was definitely something there. “You, er, showed great restraint,” he says, trying to phrase it like a compliment.

But Richard just shrugs. “Wasn’t hard.”

It is quite difficult, he finds, to not be insulted by that. “No? Am I not dishy enough for you?”

Richard’s expression shifts to something less playful and Taron realizes he might’ve just crossed a line. “Taron,” he says, and then he does that thing where he looks away and pinches his lip between his fingers. Taron can read this. He knows Richard, _knows_ him, which is maybe why last night had felt easy. Natural. Warranted.

“Sorry,” Taron says.

Still Richard doesn’t look at him. “Just… don’t,” he says, his voice low.

“Okay. I said sorry.”

Richard drops his hand from his mouth and turns to look at him full-on. His face is drawn and serious and Taron hates, intensely, that he’s the cause of it. “It can’t be all fun and games all the time,” he says, and then he slips off his chair. “Just because things don’t matter to you, mate, doesn’t mean they don’t matter.” 

“Richard…” Taron starts, but Richard just claps him on the shoulder and turns to go.

“We’re good, okay? Don’t spare it another thought. I’m meant to be at the gym but we’ll catch up later, yeah? Thanks for the drink.” He’s halfway across the room before Taron can protest; he’s quite good at that. At leaving.

“Dicky,” he calls instead, which has never before failed to make Richard smile, but Richard just shoots him a wink that is more forced than not and passes through the doors outside.

Taron’s at a loss. He has somehow regressed back beyond square one. He is horribly afraid that he has managed to fucked things up.

And the bloody mary tastes like shit, anyway. He leaves the rest of it on the bar, untouched.

\---

Just looking at his itinerary for the next two weeks is enough to leave Taron knackered, so he lets himself be manhandled in the most docile of ways. Hop on a plane, here. Do another interview, there. This red carpet and that styled photoshoot and those talking points in these cities until exhaustion seeps from his insides. He’s got massive bags under his eyes. His throat’s gone scratchy but _god forbid_ if he doesn’t rhapsodize about the sex scene for the twenty millionth time. He truly means it when he says that it’s raw and important and beautiful, but there are only so many ways he can phrase it before it starts to sound like bullshit. He imagines Richard’s just as weary. He doesn’t bring himself to ask.

Things have settled between them, at least. By the time Richard returns from his Monaco excursion they are back to normal, back to daily texts and easy laughter and the long-running mystery of why the internet thinks he’s stolen Richard’s AirPods. 

The New York premiere is its own beast—less intimidating, to be sure, but just as demanding. The jean jacket is delivered to him hours before and he nearly explodes with excitement. Jamie’s at this one, which is lovely, and a smattering of other friends, and the afterparty carries them to a bar he knows and loves, with good music and heavy pours and he drinks more than he maybe should because he never fucking learns his lesson. Richard grins at him from atop his beer, across the room. The entire party’d just done a rousing round of Tom Petty tunes by the piano and he feels happy and floaty and full.

His gaze keeps flickering back, though. He wants his friends to have as much fun as he’s having. He’s considerate that way. And so when Richard slips silently out the back, in the early hours of the morning, Taron makes the decision to follow.

The door clicks shut softly behind him. Richard’s braced against the brick wall, shoulders hunched, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Even through the darkness he can tell he doesn’t look surprised to see Taron.

They were quite beyond surprising each other at this point, Taron thinks.

“Come to lecture me?” Richard asks, his eyebrows lifted teasingly. 

“Yes,” Taron answers. “Bum one?”

“Shouldn’t let me be a bad influence,” he says, but he passes his own lit ciggy over with two fingers and Taron takes it, brings it to his mouth, takes a long and gratifying drag.

“Fuck, that’s good. If you’re a bad influence… I think I’ll take my chances.”

Richard shakes his head at him. “You’ll have regrets tomorrow.”

Taron hands the cigarette back, already missing the weight of it between his fingers. “No,” he says, joining Richard against the wall. His brain is buzzing and his body feels heavy in the best possible way; it is amazing, he knows, that this rollercoaster hasn’t stalled. It is amazing to be here, with Richard. It is all bloody amazing. “I don’t do regrets, you see.”

Richard quietly observes him from over his shoulder, and Taron gets the feeling he’s about to be chastised again. He opens his mouth, closes it, and then sighs and takes another drag. He must’ve changed his mind. “You exhaust me,” he tells him, but without any real bite to his voice. He tips his head back and Taron has the strangest, flickering impulse to run his fingertips along his throat.

He refrains.

“I don’t mean to,” he offers, but Richard just smiles his lopsided smile.

“I know,” he says. “That might be the worst bit.”

Richard draws himself up, all at once, and stubs the cigarette out against the brick. He flicks it into a nearby bin and then turns to Taron, grasps him by the shoulders. His thumb traces over Taron’s collarbone, but feather-light, like it’s an impulse he can’t control. “Sometimes, mate,” he says, “I don’t think you even realize what you’re saying. Gets you into trouble, that does.” He bites down on his lower lip, in that way of his, and reconsiders. “Gets _me_ into trouble.” He steps back, drops his grip. Looks Taron in the eye for the first time since he’d followed him outside. There is an uneasy current between them that Taron feels responsible for, but the problem is, he has no fucking idea why.

“High time I head out,” Richard says. Leaving, again. He always seems to be leaving.

“Right then. Big day tomorrow.”

Richard grins at him, all teeth, and it’s an out, and they’ll take it, and move past without incident. Like they do. Taron’s head is swimming but Richard is as calm and collected as ever, of course. He ought to have that on his CV. “Big day,” he agrees. “Don’t celebrate too hard.”

And then, just like before, he’s gone, and Taron’s left with a question he doesn’t even know how to begin to ask.

\---

Only.

Only he mulls things over while he sits at the bar—swigging water, this time, as if to prove a point—and he’s so consumed that he doesn’t even recognize when a gorgeous young starlet flirts it up with him, and he’s saying his goodnights far sooner than he might’ve otherwise done, and on the ride to the hotel his confusion turns to frustration, and he’s hardly even able to make small talk with his driver, who really is a very lovely conversationalist, and he’s near fuming when he steps into the elevator, near scowling when he steps out, and he intentionally passes by his own room and instead, charges right on down the hallway to Richard’s.

He knocks, more politely than he’d like, because it’s tremendously late and he can’t help but imagine his mum’s displeasure if he were caught making a ruckus on the likes of TMZ, but only a few moments pass before the door creaks open and Richard stands before him. He’s stripped down to a smart black tshirt and a pair of athletic shorts, but his hair still looks perfectly coiffed, of course. His eyebrows lift at the sight of Taron in his doorway.

So maybe they can still surprise each other after all.

“Well, invite me in,” Taron says, more brusquely than he means to. Thinking again of his mum, he pulls himself together, clears his throat, and adds a pacifying, “Please.”

Richard steps aside to let him through. The blankets on his bed are rumpled, so he might’ve been sleeping. The back of Taron’s neck feels warm. “I think we should have it out,” he says.

The corner of Richard’s mouth twitches. “What, you mean fight? We don’t fight.”

“I know we don’t! Maybe that’s the issue.”

“There _is_ no issue.”

Richard’s got his arms crossed tight and a frown line ridged across his forehead and even here, like this, in the dim hotel lighting, he is unbelievably good-looking.

It is maybe not normal to think about one of your closest mates like that.

Taron can’t seem to give a single shit about being normal right now.

“Dicky,” he says, and it works: Richard breaks into a begrudging smile. “There is definitely an issue.”

“It’s late, Taron,” he says tiredly. “Maybe we should fight tomorrow instead.”

It is a good sign that things are going to be okay, at least, that they’re still able to joke like this.

“You’ve got me all sorts of mixed up, Richard.”

Richard rubs at his bottom lip with his thumb. Taron wants to knock his hand away. He wants to replace it with his own. “It’ll pass,” Richard says.

“And if it doesn’t?”

“It will.”

Taron stares him down, but Richard’s not meeting his gaze. He looks as exhausted as Taron feels. He looks like he’s got an emotional tornado ripping through his insides. He looks like he’s holding something back.

“Oh my god,” Taron says, suddenly struck with realization. “Oh my god! You think all of this was just because I was pissed.”

“You were pissed.” Richard sniffs a little, as if he can smell tonight’s beer heavy on Taron’s breath. Maybe he can. “You _are_ pissed.”

“Right, maybe so, but that has _nothing_ to do with it. Honest.”

Richard smiles again, in a placating sort of way, but it doesn’t actually reach his eyes. “Yeah, all right. Famous last words.”

It is very odd, Taron thinks, to want to pound someone and kiss someone in equal measures. He compromises by grabbing a fistful of Richard’s tshirt. He’s just not sure where to go from there.

But Richard is quick on the draw. He peels Taron’s hands away from him, steps back, cleanly smoothes out the wrinkles. “Go sober up, T,” he says on a sigh. “We’ll have it out later. Maybe not, y’know, the day our film comes out? Give it a little break, don’t you think?”

Taron clenches his jaw in frustration but turns, obediently, to go. “Has nothing to do with alcohol,” he insists, his hand on the doorknob. He pauses there, at the door, waits for Richard to stop him.

Richard doesn’t stop him.

So he goes back to his own room, and he chugs three glasses of water, just to be safe, and then he lays awake and tries to focus more on the incredible reception that Rocketman’s received over the last few days, and less on what it’d be like to shag Richard into the mattress.

\---

He wakes up with amazing clarity.

If this were a movie, he’d throw back the curtains and sunlight would filter into the room. Birds would chirp from the windowsill. Richard would be pacing outside his doorway, rehearsing a heartfelt _I'm-just-a-boy-standing-in-front-of-another-boy_ speech, and looking like a goddamn Disney prince. 

This is not a movie, though. It’s dreary and grey in the city. He’s got morning breath and rumpled boxers. Richard is nowhere to be found.

Still, he is giddy with anticipation: widespread release, today. The culmination of an incredible amount of blood and sweat and tears. And time, so much time, poured into this process. It’s all happening. He’ll be able to disappear into the countryside for a well-earned holiday, soon enough. He’ll be able to breathe.

There is something, however, that he needs to do first. 

He mainlines a cup of coffee. He brushes his teeth—twice, for good measure—and changes his clothes. He walks down the hallway, a lot less irritatedly than he’d done last night. He lifts his hand and knocks. He waits.

Richard doesn’t answer.

He knocks again.

Nothing.

He exhales sharply, because of course Richard isn’t in his room. He’s probably at the gym, running a sensible fifteen kilometers. Or sipping an overpriced green juice from an environmentally-friendly metal straw. Or rescuing kittens, or something, doesn’t Richard just seem the type.

He turns to go.

“Hello,” Richard says.

He’s just getting off the elevator, empty cup in hand—right on two—and looking curiously at Taron. For once, his hair is a little out of sorts. It makes Taron like him more. “You’re up early.”

Taron squares his shoulders. “I’m sober,” he announces.

Richard’s forehead crinkles up in amusement. “Congratulations?”

“I’m _sober_ ,” Taron repeats, like maybe Richard hadn’t understood him.

Richard studies him for a long beat and then shuffles past him, unlocks his room with a card. He holds the door open for Taron. Taron steps inside.

“I was recently hit with the crushing realization,” Taron starts, his eyes locked on Richard, “that pretty soon I’m not going to be forced to spend every waking moment with you.”

“I s’pose you’ll have to go back to casually insulting me on Instagram,” Richard says, but Taron shakes his head and cuts him off.

“No, no, no. Don’t joke. I’m being serious, here. For once in my life.”

Richard’s expression softens. “It’ll be strange,” he agrees, “but it’s not like we won’t stay in touch.”

“Right.” Taron rubs at his chin. He’s got that feeling again, the one he’d thought had been brought on by pure luck and liquor, the buzzing in his veins, like his nerves are on fire. Maybe it wasn’t luck and liquor after all. Maybe it’s being around Richard that’s done it to him. He steps closer. “The thing is… The thing is that if we leave, and I haven’t tried this, I’m not sure I’ll ever stop regretting it.”

Richard swallows, and this time, Taron allows himself to watch the pull of his throat. It puts lovely, filthy thoughts in his head. “Thought you didn’t do regrets,” Richard says quietly.

“I don’t, normally,” he says back. “This could be a first.”

He doesn’t move in, because if he’s read things wrong—if Richard doesn’t want this—if this hasn’t been as inevitable as it’s felt for Taron, since they’d met back in London, since before they’d stripped down and rolled around on camera, even—he doesn’t think he’ll be able to live with himself. He needs to know. He needs for it to go both ways.

“Well,” Richard says, after a painfully long pause, and for once he meets Taron’s gaze straight on, “I’d hate for you to break that streak.”

Taron huffs out a laugh and, taking that as confirmation enough, pulls Richard in by his shirt. “Told you it wasn’t the beer talking,” he murmurs, nipping lightly at Richard’s neck with his teeth. Richard shivers against him. “You weren’t keen to believe me but it’s not exactly an anomaly, you know, being attracted to you.”

“You drive me fucking insane, I swear to it,” Richard says, and he captures Taron’s wrists again, like before, but this time, instead of pushing him away, he draws him closer. Runs the backs of his knuckles up along his chest, his collarbone. Tips Taron’s chin up with one hand. There is some sort of—of animal magnetism, in his eyes, but there’s something softer there too. They are two people who genuinely _get_ each other. Taron thinks he could spend the rest of his life chasing that feeling with someone else.

He’s pretty glad he doesn’t have to.

Richard pulls him in for a kiss and it’s hot and dizzying and everything he’d expected it to be, the slide of Richard’s stubble against his jaw, his fingers raking almost desperately through Taron’s hair. It is not the first time they’ve kissed but it’s the first time they’ve meant it, and he means it _so much_ he thinks he could explode with the weight of it. They kiss deeply and hungrily, hands wandering in every direction, and Richard shoves him roughly against the wall, who knew he had it in him, and then they’re grappling for their clothes, Richard’s shirt dropped into a heap on the floor, Taron’s shorts pooled around his ankles.

“Bed?” Taron suggests, but Richard smirks and says, “I think here will do just fine,” and then he’s lowering himself to his knees, he’s nudging Taron’s legs apart, he’s mouthing kisses along the inside of Taron’s thigh without an ounce of hesitation. Taron shoves his fist against his mouth to bite back an embarrassingly loud groan but Richard coaxes it out of him anyway, wraps his mouth around him expertly, Taron’s breath pulled out of him in waves and sagging back against the wall.

Taron tries to warn him, when he’s getting close, gives him plenty of notice, but Richard pulls off just long enough to say, “Come on, then,” and it’s in the top five sexiest things Taron’s ever heard in his life and he’s done for, after that. He’s still trembling when Richard gets back up to his feet.

“Jesus Christ,” Taron says shakily, “I don’t even want to know where you learned to do _that_ ,” but he laughs and pulls Richard close again, presses a messy kiss against his jaw.

“Still all right, then?” Richard asks, and for once he _does_ look wrecked, in the best possible way, and it’s infuriating how much _better-looking_ it makes him.

“More than all right,” Taron answers, and then he’s drawing Richard over towards the mattress, pushing him back on the bed, climbing over top of him. He grins and runs a finger down Richard’s chest, and thinks he might be the luckiest idiot on this side of the planet. “It’s my turn now, after all.”

\---

The film comes out, and Taron doesn’t want to read reviews but Elton keeps on sending them, and they’re all flattering as fuck, and he gets a little weepy whenever a particularly kind one is thrown his way. It is not, as he’d feared, the _end_ but rather: a beginning. Life is different after that, but of course it is. Nothing this ludicrous could ever stay the same.

He gets the time off and he spends long days reflecting on a sunny spot near a river, and he takes the time to relax and refuel and consider what’s next. The world from that view seems open and inviting and he’s not afraid to dive in headfirst, not after the last two years of his life. He’s excited and ready to move on from this experience. To have grown.

And he makes sure to schedule a time to see Richard as soon as he can, of course. But that one, he thinks, was a given.

**Author's Note:**

> did i really use lyrics from _honky cat_ for the title? YOU BET I DID.
> 
> how's everyone doing? hanging in there? just barely? me too.
> 
> ❤


End file.
